As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems.
An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information.
Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated.
The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use, such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
The data storage systems may be configured as a Storage Area Network (SAN). SAN environments are generally quite complex, so network professionals must have extensive knowledge of networking principals to properly deploy a SAN. Even experienced technicians and/or engineers may introduce errors into a deployment. For example, an incorrect value for a field may be entered through a typing error or transcription error, which can lead to poor SAN performance. Such a seemingly minor issue may require many hours of troubleshooting to resolve. Examples of such fields include server addresses, SYSLOG server identification, wrong SNMP server identification, among others.
Many other potential configuration errors exist. For example, components may have been physically connected incorrectly, or required connections may be missing.
Further, configurations may change over time. Such changes introduce an opportunity for a set-up error.
There is currently no easy way to confirm that a SAN is properly configured, following an initial setup or after a configuration change.